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Japan

Walking down this roadI would like to see a rice fieldgolden in the morning sunwith a great mountain rising behind itjust around the next bend. I would settle for a townits lone Temple quiet, awaitingthe morning bell, the call to sit,with maybe a cat at the base of a statue the Bodhisattva.I am ready to bow deeplyto the first monk I see this day,but my reverie is brokenby the barely dodged wavethrown up by city busrunning late and fastdown the crowded street ofthis upstate New York city.

Origami cranes lumber into flightand lift into the sky over the small, back street Templesomewhere on the periphery of Shinjuku.They know their flight will beonly temporary, that their wingswill grow quickly tired, thatthe rustling sound of two thousand wingswill soon fall silentas the breeze bids thema peaceful night,and the Temple bellannounces the evening zazen.

He says that in his prior life,this being second he knows of,he was Japanese, although he didhave a cousin in China, but he doesn’t know his name anymore.He wasn’t there for the warwith Okinawa, but he knows that karate was developed then,and it’s why, in this lifehe studies karate, becauseit’s part of his heritage.He says he has many more storiesto tell of his prior life, heremembers it quite well,but that’s all he will tell ustoday, for a six-year-oldneeds to dole out stories slowly.

If you ask me whethera dog has buddha natureI will stare back at youin total silence.If you ask again,or implore an answerI will smile at you,offer gassho and a bow.If you ask yet again,I will turn awayand you will be leftwith a box into whichyou dare not looklest you find Schroedinger’s cat.